


Beginnings

by servantofclio



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casey knows April O'Neil is something special, but to date her, he's going to have to deal with her friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginnings

The day after the medal ceremony at Liberty Island, April sends Casey a text that says “turns out I have a work thing next weekend. raincheck?”

He fires back a “yeah, sure. Friday after?” but he can’t help but be disappointed. April O’Neil isn’t just one of the most gorgeous women he’s ever met, she’s also put-together, gutsy, and smart. And stubborn, too; not a lot of people can hold their own shut up in a small room with someone like Vincent for hours, but April never budged from her story. Plus she put herself on the line between a bunch of armed cops and her friends, and convinced Casey to do the same, just from sheer headlong example.

No, April O’Neil is definitely something special. Someone worth getting to know better, and worth waiting for.

He just has to hope she’s not blowing him off for good.

“April’s real serious about her work,” Raph informs him, somehow making a totally normal sentence sound like a threat.

“Suuuuper serious,” Mikey chimes in. “You do not wanna get between her and a story, believe me.”

“I’m not gonna,” Casey protests, but the two of them keep at it.

“If you can’t handle a woman with a serious career, you better bow out now.”

“Totally,” Mikey agrees. “April don’t have time for an insecure dude, brah.”

“I’m not insecure,” Casey says defensively.

They smirk at him. 

“I’m not! Look, she’s a journalist?”

“Investigative reporting,” Mikey says importantly.

Casey nods. “Yeah, I get it. That’s totally cool. I know reporters keep weird hours, so do cops. It’s cool that she canceled, I just, y’know. I hope that’s the only reason she canceled.”

The two of them exchange glances. Shit. Admitting that was probably a tactical error.

“Wellll,” Raph drawls. “You wanna impress her? Some of us happen to know what she likes.”

Casey’s skeptical. He’s not inclined to take dating advice from a bunch of teenagers who grew up in the goddamn sewers and can’t talk to most humans without them screaming and running away. “Yeah, sure you do.”

Mikey looks offended. “Dude.”

“Hey, do what you want,” Raph says. “It’ll be fun to watch.”

Casey rolls his eyes and turns his back, preparing to head back to his place. He’s not entirely sure why he came down here to check in with these jokers anyway.

“I mean, the Vern shutdown was fun to watch, so.”

Mikey cackles. “Oh, yeah! That was awesome.”

That gets Casey’s attention. He looks back over his shoulder. “She shut down Vern?”

“You know it!” Mikey says. “She shut him down _hard_.” He punches a fist into his palm for emphasis.

Raph grins. “So, y’know, if you don’t wanna follow in the footsteps of ‘the Falcon,’ maybe you should tell us what your big date-night plans were.”

Casey shrugs, uncomfortable. “My usual game, like I said. Figured we’d go out for burgers or pizza or something.” And then, if he was lucky, back to his place. He’s not going to count on anything, but he is going to make sure the place is clean and decent enough for company.

“Pizza?” Mikey says hopefully. Raph smacks him on the back of the head.

“I already brought you bottomless pits pizza today,” Casey reminds him.

Mikey makes his eyes extra big and round. “We’re growing boys!”

Casey shudders at the concept of them growing any bigger than they already are. Christ.

Raph is shaking his head, though. “Man, that’s the way you treat a lady, Jones?”

“What’s the matter with how I treat a lady?” Casey demands. It’s a perfectly good date plan. Plenty of dates have enjoyed this plan.

“You could take her out someplace _nice_ ,” Raph scoffs.

“Get flowers,” Mikey chimes in.

“Box of chocolates or something.”

“Oooh! Play her a special song! I’ve got one all ready—”

Raph whacks Mikey again. “Owww,” he whines.

“Flowers,” Casey says warily. “I guess I could do that. Pick up some roses or something.”

Raph scoffs again.

“What?” Casey demands.

“Dude,” Mikey says. “Don’t you like that’s kind of basic, like?”

Teenagers, Casey reminds himself. Who grew up in the goddamned sewers. “Whatever,” he says, and walks out. He can hear the two of them cackling behind him as he goes.

Two days after that, April calls and says she’s free after all, and does he still want to get together?

Look, Casey was never a straight-A student, but no way is he dumb enough to pass this one up. “Sure,” he says. “Absolutely.”

They pick a time and place to meet, and as soon as he hangs up the phone he starts sweating. Spends an hour scrubbing down his apartment, realizes that their date is actually tomorrow night and he’s run out of time to scope out restaurants nicer than his usual. He’s not going to take her somewhere he doesn’t know what’s what and can’t pronounce half the menu. So fine, it’s going to be burgers — hanging out with the turtles, the woman probably gets more than enough pizza in her life — but they’re going to be good burgers, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Casey’s not a fancy-restaurant kind of guy, anyway.

But he could still be a flowers kind of guy. That could actually be cool. A nice, classy gesture. Right.

So he goes to the nearest florist’s shop and almost buys roses, except he keeps imagining Raph and Mikey’s stupid scornful faces. Casey grinds his teeth and looks around at everything else. The florist tries to sell him on orchids. He just can’t get behind them. Orchids are weird-looking, no matter what anyone says. He shoos off the florist and wanders around helplessly. Carnations don’t seem as nice as roses, and tulips seem kinda out of season, and nothing seems _right_.

Casey gives up and walks out.

“You do realize they were trolling you, right?” comes a voice as he walks past an alley. Casey whips his head around frantically in the dusk, nearly cracking his neck, before ducking into the alley and finding Leo there.

“The hell,” Casey says. “What, are you following me now?”

Leo shrugs. “Just making the rounds, and happened to see you in the shop.”

Casey’s not sure if Leo seriously expects him to believe that. Then again, Leo seems less into the dumb jokes than his brothers. He crosses his arms. “Trolling me, huh?”

“April happened to mention your date was back on,” Leo says, ducking his head a little. “Raph and Mikey seemed pretty amused, so…”

“I’ll bet they did,” Casey mutters.

“I wouldn’t take them too seriously.”

Casey nods. He should have known better in the first place than to let those two oversized brats get to him. He eyes Leo curiously. “And you’re telling me this because…?”

“It’s April,” Leo says, as if that explains everything. To Casey’s stare, he adds, “She seemed really excited about it, though she spent most of her time talking to Donnie. I just want her to have a nice time.”

“You didn’t want me to mess it up,” Casey fills in.

Leo smiles a little. “I didn’t want things to get too complicated.”

“Huh,” Casey says, thinking it over. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You should know, though…”

“Yeah?” Casey asks warily.

Leo smiles more widely. “We will always have April’s back when she needs it. Just so you know.”

Great. Now he’s getting a freaking _shovel talk_ from a _teenager_.

… admittedly, a teenager who could cut him in half without blinking, as far as Casey can tell. He says, “Yeah. I figured.”

Leo nods and heads for the fire escape. Casey calls out: “Hey, if you don’t want me to mess this up—”

“I have no idea what kind of flowers April would like,” Leo says. “But I know who I’d ask.”

Donatello had given Casey their contact info, just in case, and answers with: “Casey? This is a surprise.”

“Yeah.” Casey clears his throat, feeling awkward. “So I’m seeing April tomorrow—”

“Oh, yes, she mentioned.”

“—and I was kinda wondering if there was anything I should know. Like.” He has a sudden awful thought. “Food allergies or—”

“April will eat anything once, she doesn’t like espresso, she prefers dark chocolate, and her favorite color is yellow,” Donnie says. “Does that help?”

“Yeah,” Casey says, with a surge of gratitude. “Yeah, it does. Hey, does she like roses?”

“Loves roses, lilies make her sneeze.”

“Thanks,” Casey says honestly.

“I assume Leo informed you—”

“I’m not going to break her heart,” Casey says, and means it.

April raises an eyebrow at the yellow roses he hands her, but smiles and accepts them. “Thank you, they’re beautiful.”

“You’re welcome. You look great,” he adds, and means it: she looks gorgeous, in fact.

“So what’s the plan for tonight?” she asks.

Casey smiles and tries not to let his nervousness show. “Well, hockey, like I said, and then I figured we could go out for burgers or… whatever you want?”

“Sounds perfect,” April says, and takes his arm with a smile.


End file.
